My grandmother's birthday is coming up.
Every year it's the same thing. I am dragged home from my life in college to visit someone who is basically a mean old lady because she might not make the next birthday. Well, fine. I can play nice.
But it also means I'm going to be forced to play the piano for anyone who happens to be attending this shindig. I USED to play, and pretty well I guess. I took lessons for nine years, passed a bunch of the exams, the whole deal. But I've been in college (piano-less) for three years now. I don't play anymore. It takes me almost the entire summer to get anywhere near the level I was at before I left home. More annoyingly, my sister still lives at home, with the piano. SHE could play. But no, for some reason they won't ask her.
So they'll ask me to play and nana will give that look and I'll be forced to give it the old college try. It will sound like s**t. A third-rate player piano that a drunk had poured his beer into could do better than me after a few months of not playing.
And it will be "another" and "another" and "one more" because they expect me to be able to remember the thirty or so songs I used to know by heart until all that's left is Old MacDonald, the extended dance-mix version. And no one wants to hear that.
Obviously, they'll tell me how good I sound. "Have you been playing at all at your school?" Clearly not. "It would be a shame to lose your skill." Too late. "Do you want to play another song for me?" ******** no.
But I will. And as I play I'll remember the good times...being forced to play for hours as I cried because I hated it...playing until my fingers were stiff and sore to prepare for exams...slamming my finger in the car door on the way to my last piano exam...the piano teacher hitting my hands when I used the wrong fingering...ahh, youth.
The only bright side is that they are all going deaf. I could play with my feet and they probably couldn't tell the difference.
What key is Heart and Soul in?
B.longimanus · Sun Nov 04, 2007 @ 02:44am · 0 Comments |